A brief Update

What a horrid week it has been. Possibly the best thing that occurred was that I got my silver for IPPT and hence I'm richer by 100 bucks. Haha (come to think of it, its a mere consolation!) ANyway, went to 201 on Mon to work as slave labour, tues was peaceful, wed was technical handling and worse, Bn RSM saw us playing games......arGH!!! THurs was a lot of brain power work for me, same for friday as well. But on Fri OC saw one of us viewing movie clips. Now, that's a lot of trouble in 1 week!!!

Oh well, hopefully next week is better. There's still IPPT and SOC (my COy stand seems to be gold for IPPT), but its much better than having a coy cadence run. I'm looking forward to friday, cause going down to suntec for NDP Sponsorship launch, that means booking out on thurs nite hopefully. Yea, then can immediately play after the event.

I realised I've deviated from my original purpose of having this blog, so let me bring it back on track. I'm just gonna highlight to all about this year's Nobel Prize winners in Economics, Prescott and Kydland.

I agree with this year's judgement of awarding Prescott and Kydland the Nobel Prize. After all, their work has certainly contributed greatly to Macroeconomics. The Time consistency problem of economic policies has certainly resulted in a rethink of how the Central Bank as well as the government functions, and it has led to issues of credibility. All these has certainly led to improvements in policy making in general, as well as allowing people to anticipate the effects of policy changes better.

Another key work of theirs is that they developed the real business cycle theory. This is very significant, as prior to their work people were much more concerned with demand shocks. Their work showed the effects of supply shocks on the economy, hence allowing people to better understand business cycles as well as economic conditions better. Even though there is still much debate on the how robust the real business cycle theory is, it has certainly left its mark on Economics.

Comparing this year's laureates with last year's, I must say that this year's decision is much more undisputable. The winners have not 1 but 2 Nobel Prize winning contributions, and they are widely regarded as leaders in their respective fields. They are widely cited in papers, and most undergrads would have touched on topics related to their work. The fact that their work is so widely proliferated shows that indeed, their work has influenced Economics at different levels, and not just purely among academics.

That's just a brief opinion of mine. If your interested to read about the press release of their awards, visit http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2004/press.html.

LiFe is Boring.....

Well, I must say that life is real boring....... super super boring. Well, guess this is a real super boring PoST as well.........

Well, spent my sat at sentosa, then went orchard and then Junction 8. It Was Superbly tiring...... We played frisbee, folick about in the water and then carried on with more frisbee.. Andrew's ultimate frisbee was so xiong (it was real hard to run on sand too!!) that we literally exhausted ourselves after just 2 games!!

After playing about at siloso beach for 3 hours, we went off to harborfront to eat lunch (more like lunch cum dinner), then went to Midpoint Orchard to search for D&D stuff. Well, couldn't find the PHB, but saw Edwin there playing cards and saw people playing warhammer and similar type games. Hmm, was wowing more at the guy who created warhammer the game for PCs.....if not I will never have a chance to bother myself with the game -- the actual game is just too ex. for me!!!

Then we went to kino and borders to attempt to find the PHB. Too bad, we failed horribly. Then off we go to forum to discover that its a place for rich kids. Haha, guess I won't bother to go there often in my life. Hmm, finally went to J8.

Well well, J8 changed humongously since the last time i went there. The complex is now bigger and there are more stuff there now than before. And surprise surprise, we found PHB at the MPH there!!! And I bought deception point too. Well, I'm going to be broke if I carry on spending like this.

Hmm, there's the screening of saving pte. Ryan in camp next week. Looking forward to it. Hope that wat happened last thurs will not occur again. Totally scary, with sanDy appearing in office, and MSD appearing just a few floors above us. Well, at least I now got a new OS and a wonderfully reformatted comp. Haha.

KuDos>!

Snippets

I was talking with Elv and WJ the past week. Had an interesting time learning more about people with a different background from me.

We were talking about caning that day and I was so amazed cause caning was what people were discussing in the FORum.
Well, we all agreed that caning is essential especially for young kids and we will discipline our kids in future with the rod if necessary. I will too Haha. But certainly, I will not beat them until they are injured, or scarred. That's absolutely horrid!

Wwe reached the topic of taxes and we were all lamenting about being tax-free. I'm not happy being tax-free too. Hopefully all of us can start paying taxes soon.

Haha, wonder whether you guys get my meaning.

Deep ThouGhts??

Oh well, had a good week playing comp games, lanning, singing and watching 2046. Had a real healthy week too with playing badminton and basketball and running. Well, I must say that life is certainly real good right now, hopefully I will finally sit up right and start studying as well soon.

Saw my PC blog. Found out he's a gepper and from U Penn too. Haha, and all the rubbish that he told DOug that he's just a chairperson of COmp. Club. Throw in President Scout and Hockey School Team (Gold Medallist) and you start to understand why he's a SAFOS.

Read his journal too and found it interesting that he seems to be exasperated with us. He doesn't understands why some management theory fails completely when your applying on NSF. Something about how with ownership, people will work better. I realised that this is so similar to my experiences in SJ. Guess its the motivation factor that we talking about too (hint if there's more offs, I'm sure people will put together something spectacular).

Oh, saw something interesting too and that is he is puzzled why we are all just concerned with delivering the end products. I think that's something I agree with him. I mean there are so many people out there who are just concerned with delivering the grades, the products that they don't care about anything else (product-oriented people). On the contrary, GEpperS tend to be more concerned with the process (its true, I feel it too). I guess some people can never figure out why we spend hours on some things (out of pure interest) when you can just put in an answer straight. It is really the process that matters and moulds you. Guess I shall pay attention to this when I embark on teaching.

Speaking of teaching, I'm amazed at how similar it is to the SAF. Haha, all the parallels are present so it's just out there for you to observe. Hopefully my remaining months in 3 Sig can give me valuable insights for me to prepare my career with.

2046 is an interesting movie in which I feel the focus is not on the story, but on how the story is told and what the director hopes to express. Granted, it is simple (just 3 love stories linked by TOny Leung's Character), but the ideas in my opinion are quite strong. For examply, love is about right time right person, and if you miss it, it's tough to go back. Also, the courage to love?

Hmm, I agree with Sunday times that it's either you love it or hate it. I found it disturbing and challenging. A good movie to watch for literature buffs and people interested in film-making. For people who just want to watch a story, then forget it.

EduCation ChanGEs

I'm quited impressed, stunned, excited, and amazed with all the recent announcements by the Education Ministry, and yet at the same time I'm not that surprised because that time when I got a chance to talk to Mr Thanman, he did hinted that a series of sweeping changed will be made in Education and will be announced soon, and boy was he right. It is indeed appropriate and necessary in my opinion that the Ministry has finally started to implement for the majority of students and not just stick with what some people claims to be "elitist" principles.

I'm kind of irate after a heated discussion with my friend over the introduction of through train. He was arguing that through train is elitist (and also implied that I'm elitist), and he argues that it will deprive some people of a second chance to make it to RJC or HCJC since this 2 schools will more or less just accept people from their own affiliated schools. And because of this he claims its unfair as some people from RI and TCHS might not get into their respective affiliated schools if they were to take the O levels. And he doesn't think that the schools will actually dare to kick out students from the through train program. Finally, he argues that to some people going to RJC might be what they have been pinning for all their lives, hence through train is unfair to them by making their paths so much more difficult.

With this argument, I am seriously perturbed!!!! I have faith that all through train schools will all maintain a high performance level from their students, and that it is very likely that students who do not make the grades will be kicked out(he claims that since it is the first year, no one knows, but since GEP does this too, so I know...). What is even more disturbing is that he seems to overlook the point of education which is not to help people to get to RJC (is that the real aim?) but instead it is really more of instilling in people an inquistive mind to learn as well as adapt in the real world of today! Furthermore, through train has added so much more diversity to the system as well as provide more opportunities to a greater group of students, unlike the past when the GEP are the only ones (a pathetically small 1%) to get the kind of specialised training.

We were also talking about education in the Normal Stream and he thinks that the Ministry is not doing enough, and he seems to think that making into the Express stream is all there is in Education. I'm amused cause that day Mr Thanman announced all those sweeping changes. Anyway, the Normal stream aims is not to produce people to go into Express, but to help each and every individual carve their own niche. It is really disappointing to me that people actually sort of condemn Normal Students... I mean, education is certainly not to create a uniform pool of people with the same skills. And uniformity might be fairer (in what sense actually? In fact it can be unfair as it does not caters to people's needs) as all people go through the same system, but the results might not be desirable on the whole.

Of course, this inevitably let me to think about poly students vs. JC students. There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding on both parties as to what we are like, and I do think that when making friends, it is really the individual that matters. I mean, when I first interacted with some people, I found them nice even though they were from schools which I abhor. So I'm trying to say that it is more of some crap group mentality that people tend to create stereotypes, which are not always true. HAha. I'm having a great time interacting with my platoon mates from poly, and I do think that there ain't any barrier between us. Hmm, maybe there is and that is our command of English. Guess that could be because of the fact that we need to write so much more crap that inevitably we expanded our vocab and hence there is some disparity between the jc student and poly student. But their mastery of technical knowledge is truly amazing, and they are seriously not muggers!!! Haha.

Talking about this, I was talking to a friend about the possibility that I might need to go ROC in 06, which is totally horrid as I'm supposed to be clearing!!!!!! Well, its not that he sounded nonchalent or what, but I realised that when you are with a group of people who ORDs at the same time as ya, you don't exactly feel much about ORD dates and stuff. But in a place where ORD dates differs, you can seriously feel the impact and significance that changes to the work plans, changes to your environment and system have on you. And you will then discover that different ORD dates people have such an extremely different attitude. Hmm, I'm not sure if you can understand but trust me, it is something you need to experience to know.

Anyway, with the changes in the education landscape, I'm really keen to know what is install with me. Suddenly, joining MOE seems like a tremendous challenge. But I am still a pragmatic person who will be looking for a high-paying job. Haha. But joining MOE might really change my life. I'm also wondering what exactly is my role in future? Is it really to teach only? Life is indeed begining to look real challenging and interesting....

Got guard duty tomorrow. SUCKS!

P>S> I wanna go singing one of these days.....but don't know when I will ever have the time..........